University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty Volume 13 Number 2 Summer 1991 The underclass: Assessing what we have learned 1 Small grants IRP agenda for 1991-1993: Education, families, and welfare Mentoring of at-risk students 26 IRP summer research workshop: Problems of the low-income population 33 Poverty research seminars 34 ISSN: 0 195-5705 The underclass: Assessing what we have learned by William R. Prosser class behavior and concentration. Because it was felt that William R. Prosser is a Senior Policy Analyst in the Office these papers would not necessarily provide a unifying con- of Human Services Policy, Office of the Assistant Secre- ceptual base to guide policy discussions to deal with the tary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of underclass, four theoretical models were commissioned the Health and Human Services. The opinions expressed in this following year. article do not necessarily represent the views of the Depart- ment or the Bush administration. Prosser will be a visiting In March 1990, ASPE and the Joint Center for Political and professor in the School of Social Work, University of Wis- Economic Studies (JCPES) cosponsored a forum at which consin-Madison, during the 1991-92 academic year. these papers were presented and discussed. The conference was organized to follow a series of smaller conferences and workshops covering various aspects of the underclass, sponsored over a period of several years by JCPES. It also followed a much more comprehensive conference on the Introduction "truly disadvantaged," jointly sponsored by the Social Sci- ence Research Council and the Center for Urban Affairs Over the last five years, policy and scholarly debates have and Policy Research at Northwestern University in October focused a great deal of attention on a group called the 1989.' "underclass." During 1987 and 1988, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) of The series of conferences and attendant papers were a the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services com- significant investment in an important line of research on missioned ten papers on the underclass in hope of inform- low-income people and the neighborhoods in which they ing this debate. The six papers commissioned in 1987 were live. This article is an attempt to synthesize what we have empirical explorations of various issues related to under- learned from ASPE's share of the research. While it deals primarily with the conference papers and discussions, it Wilson is now promoting a definition of the underclass also draws on a few scholarly materials which have become developed by Martha Van Haitsma, who defines the under- public since then. This synthesis is motivated by a belief class as "those persons who are weakly connected to the that one of ASPE's primary roles is to try to inform the formal labor force and whose social context tends to main- public debate on important social issues and to enhance tain or further weaken this atta~hment,"~a definition that public policy resear~h.~ requires an explanation of the terms "labor force attach- ment" and "social context." In her conceptual definition of ASPE's general interest in research on the underclass was "labor force attachment," Van Haitsma uses a structural reflected in the following questions, raised in the solicita- concept, stability, or the likelihood that the income will tions of research studies and conference agenda: continue, and a normative concept, the social acceptability of the work. She defines "social context" as the household, Is "underclass" a useful concept? neighborhood, and social network in which the individual What have we learned about the underclass? is embedded. Does the concept of neighborhood concentration bring Her definition places a heavy emphasis on low income as a anything new to the discussion of poverty? How do result of low labor force participation and the structural neighborhoods and neighbors influence individual forces that lead to low participation. In effect, she subordi- behavior? nates such behaviors as dropping out of school, teenage What have we learned that is policy relevant? What childbearing, criminal activity, and welfare dependency to does the research tell us that could lead to policy their impact on labor force participation and the income prescriptions? derived from it. Work outside the home is the only outcome valued in her theory. (Work in the home-parenting-is In this article, I examine what we have learned in answer to missing from her equation.) these questions. I look in turn at definitions, paradigms used for analyses, findings, avenues for future policy re- Other scholars, notably Erol Ricketts and Isabel Sawhill, search, and the question of whether policy prescriptions have approached the problem of conceptualizing (or flow from what we have learned. operationalizing Wilson's definition of) the underclass with even less emphasis on poverty. Instead they use a cluster of behaviors (and assumed attitudes) that are con- sidered outside today's middle-class social norms, accord- Definition of the underclass ing to which young people complete high school, delay childbearing until they are able to support their offspring, work or are supported by a spouse, and obey the law.7 The current discussion of the ghetto poor and the under- class started in the early 1980s. The fact that recent debate Poverty is highly associated with the underclass because it was initiated by a journalist, Ken Auletta, may account for is related to the structural and behavioral variables used. some of the ambiguity about its definition.' The "under- Poverty may be temporary or persistent over a person's class" is certainly related to Karl Marx's "lumpen prole- lifetime or across generations. It is generally accepted, tariat," Edward Banfield's "lower class," Michael Hamng- however, that not all the poor are members of the under- ton's "other America," Oscar Lewis's "culture of poverty," class and not all the members of the underclass are poor. and Elliot Liebow's "Talley's ~orner."~ Furthermore, the behavioral norms used vary over time and from one social group to another. Out-of-wedlock William Julius Wilson defines the underclass as childbearing is a good example: the incidence has changed that heterogeneous grouping of families and individuals dramatically over the last several decades. Births to unmar- who are outside the mainstream of the American occu- ried women are now commonplace among some groups pational system. Included . are individuals who lack while remaining outside the social norm for others. training and skills and either experience long-term un- employment or are not members of the labor force, Another way of looking at a particular behavior associated individuals who are engaged in street crime and other with the underclass at a static point in time, such as out-of- forms of aberrant behavior, and families that experience wedlock childbearing, is the probability that it is related to long-term spells of poverty and/or welfare dependen~y.~ other factors, such as lack of education, unemployment, or low income; and these in turn are related to both individual Wilson has done much of the seminal thinking on this topic. choices and larger community structural force^.^ Unfortu- He is at present carrying out a very large study, Urban nately, our measurement techniques at present are not up to Family Life (UFL) in Chicago, supported in part by ASPE. the task of determining primary causes of particular behav- The project is probably the most comprehensive effort yet iors, so we cannot yet separate those who are part of the undertaken to study the underclass. It includes a household structural underclass through no fault of their own (the poor survey, ethnographic work, and studies of institutions and deserving of concern and support) from those whose own administrative data. actions bring about their categorization (the undeserving poor). It could be the case that for most members of the underclass, their choices are so limited by structural factors beyond their control-poor parents, poor schools, lack of FOCUS is a Newsletter put out three times a year by the jobs, no marriageable men, etc.-that for all intents and purposes they have no choices to make. This too begs the Institute for Research on Poverty point, since not all people born into the same terrible ghetto 1180 Observatory Drive situations choose underclass behaviors. Trying to place 3412 Social Science Building individuals into "deserving" and "undeserving" pigeon- University of Wisconsin holes, however, is a futile exercise because life is not static; Madison, Wisconsin 53706 it is a string of situations and choices with varying degrees (608) 262-6358 of freedom and determinism. The Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, university-based The definitions suggest that two broad social science camps research center. As such it takes no stand on public policy are involved in this discussion: structuralists and issues. Any opinions expressed in its publications are those behavioralists. The structuralists, such as Wilson and of the authors and not of the Institute. Douglas Massey, who tend to be sociologists, have defined the issue in terms of broad societal forces that are causing The purpose of Focus is to provide coverage of poverty- neighborhoods to deteriorate and leaving their inhabitants related research, events, and issues, and to acquaint a large minimal opportunities to achieve a reasonable standard of audience with the work of the Institute by means of short li~ing.~Sometimes they have left it somewhat ambiguous essays on selected pieces of research. A subscription form how their theories could be tested empirically.1° with rates for our Discussion Papers and Reprints is on the back inside cover. Nonsubscribers may purchase individual Behaviorialists, such as Sawhill, Ricketts, Ronald Mincy, papers from the Institute at $3.50 for a Discussion Paper and others, who tend to be economists (although Ricketts is and $2.00 for a Reprint.